Genealogy Chat

Hi I have been on Genes reunited for about a month now and have sent approx 11 emails to Matching Names and births to other members. Only 4 have replied. Is this the norm?

You have probably had a better than average reply rate for just one month

Some members change their email addy so do not get the notification from GR that there is a message waiting for them

I, too, would say you are doing reasonably well to get 4 replies in a month,

The longest I have waited for a reply is 8 months..........you just have to learn to be patient.

Kath. x

It also depends on whether you wrote explaining what you thought the connection was, or just asked for information without explanation.
If you just match John Smith, 1861, Bedfordshire, and no further information, they might ignore you. If you specified wife or children or parents, then they might get into contact, if only to say No.
Have they opened your emails?

the overwhelming reason why messages are not opened and answered is that people change their email address after registering here and do not update their account information here

I believe genesreunited now reminds people to do this when it sends emails

but of course probably a large majority of the millions of members do not receive those emails now ...

I know that in the time I have been a member I have changed my internet provider twice ... imagine people who put a family tree on here 7 or 8 years ago ... in that time I have had probably 5 different email addresses !

the way to avoid this problem is to have email accounts on line like at hotmail or gmail or yahoo and use them for signing up at sites so you never miss notices ( and don't get lots of junk mail in your 'real' email box )

but I think I have probably read more posts on the boards complaining about this than I have had unanswered messages, myself ...............

I have a friend who wanted to construct their tree online,not on the computer.
Two options were considered,Genes and Ancestry as both were free.
They chose Genes but did not want any involvement with other people.
Their solution:- Mark Genes Emails as junk.

I think your friend is missing the point of genes - reuniting people?
Why did they need to do it online if they wanted no involvement, did they not think of the frustration caused to other people?

There can be many reasons why messages go unread. They vary from sudden prolonged illness, real life getting in the way of this hobby, changing their email address and not updating or simply unable to because the account holder as passed away. When subs are no longer paid everyone reverts to a free membership.

It should also be said that it is an individuals choice as to whether or not they share their tree or not, it is not compulsory however if this is the case then itis only polite to respond to any interest explaining.

For the person who does not want to communicate with others re their tree would it not be best to do a free tree on PAF (LDS), Legacy or Tribal Pages... you can puddle around quietly on your own without anyone else contacting you. A lot of us have trees elsewhere.

The very nature of this site is to communicate with others re your tree and people get their hopes up with contacting others and then feel let down.

It is a pity there isn't something in the system that says that people are no longer available to be contacted... As Tooty says if subs are not paid you revert to free membership but then you can still contact people with free membership but cannot see their tree (the names do show up in search trees). If I was to die tomorrow my tree would stay on here adinfinitum.

In conclusion William it is a bit hit and miss, you win some you lose some.
It happens... Sorry that I don't have a connection with you William, I would reply, not necessarily share my tree but would give you what was relevant re your search.

If you are in need of help there are a lot of very kind people on here that will try and assist you on Find your ancestors etc. Some of them spend a lot of time on this because they enjoy it.

Persie :-)

I too am frustrated with lack of response from my hot matches. Due to some BIG family rifts, we never knew of the existence of half my family (on either side) and it has been great 'locating' people. I always try to email enough information to get some interest but careful not to go into too much detail and wouldn't automatically want them to see my tree before reply received as I have spent alot of time (and money) doing it. I can see that most people have read the emails, just not responded. I can only assume they are not interested, although perhaps they are actually quite far removed from the matching person in question that they think they can't help me. Also v. frustrated that I have emailed a number of people where they have people in their tree who match those on certs which I have inadvertently acquired in error. Again, many emails read but no response to my offers of letting them have these documents for free.

On the plus side, I have managed to put my mum in touch with 3 cousins she never knew about, 1 of which she is meeting for the first time ever tomorrow and another that she will do in the next few weeks. I have also managed to get addresses for another 4 although getting them to respond to letters is proving to be a little harder! Further, I also managed to contact someone who is what you might call a great great cousin I believe (my mum's grandad and his grandad were brothers) and we have too already managed to meet up. :-)

Hi William

The longest I have waited for a reply had been over a year after I asked the initial question.

I am currently working my way through 6 years worth of messages and only today did I find a 6 year old request that I had missed, because I didn't have the information to had when I was at work. I'm currently on page 10 of goodness know how many and the majority of my messages have gone unanswered.....as my grandmother used to say....if it's for you it will not go by you <3

Another thing to remember is not everyone has a paid subscription so it is always better to include an email address that they can also contact you on, I have set up a yahoo account specifically for the family tree it keeps all my information in the one place it's well worth thinking about.

Caroline xxxx

Free members can reply to personal messages sent to them by subscribed members, so there is no need to give them your personal email.....!

it is very true that free members can reply to personal messages at this site

however, Caroline's idea is also a very good one, to have a ( free ) online email account specifically for the family tree, I do that too, you can call it something like smith.jones.family.tree and then you are not giving out 'personal' information ( like your name and location ) when you give that address out

it is much easier to correspond via email than through this system, an email account keeps all contacts about the family tree organized in one place and much easier to sort through than messages at this site

I believe that if you put your tree on GR that you have an obligation to respond to other people who believe there might be a connection. I always respond to people even when it is clear that there is no connection.

Just my opinion

Jude

But, Judith, as has been made crystal clear above, if a person's situation changes, the message enquiring about a connection may not get through........................

Yes Flick, point taken and agree. But where they do get through there are still a lot of people that I suspect just ignore them.

Non responders,We all from time to time,do a name search on the trees and find that,somebody has a name of interest,but they could not be researching that name,it was,just added to the tree,by marriage.
I agree it can be frustrating.

Researching Ashby Herts Raffe Suffolk Denton Berkshire

Nick

When you do send a message please communicate clearly the family that are asking about.

I had one communication recently that simply said

yes

I suspect it was in response to a hot match but could have meant anything.

I have 37 William Harryman's in my tree so it would be helpful to know which one.

One person simply said "did they emidgrate?"

He refused to tell me who he was talking about deapite me asking 3 times.

All extremes I know bujt you get the point. ;-)

What is it with William.... he is so prevalent in my tree I have 26 William Vxxxxxxs, My father was also a William and there is 9 Williams with his surname. Plus lots of other Williams in my tree.

Then I have a friend Rosemary she is the fourth of four girls and her father so wanted a boy so she was always known as "William who wasn't"

Persie